When schools closed and social contact was restricted during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, working parents faced a sharper struggle to arrange care. The pressure fell particularly heavily on women, who had less access to childcare.
Research describes one part of that strain as work-interfering-with-family, or WIF, guilt: the guilt mothers feel over the effects of their work on family life. Mothers who reported high work-family conflict and felt furthest from an ‘ideal’ mother also reported more guilt.
The burden was uneven even among mothers. Younger mothers, mothers who were studying and those working fewer hours reported greater guilt. High confidence in their parenting and peer norms that supported maternal employment were linked to lower guilt.
Across Europe, work demands were more likely to intrude on family life than family demands were to intrude on work. Mothers with young children were especially affected when work interrupted family life. The evidence continues to treat work-family conflict as a gendered issue.
That private pressure has a public counterpart in hiring and pay. A major meta-analysis of wage studies found an average motherhood wage gap of roughly 3.6% to 3.8%. Researchers have estimated a motherhood wage penalty of approximately 4% ± 2% per child for US mothers.
Experimental hiring studies found that mothers can receive worse evaluations than equally qualified women without children. In laboratory settings, mothers were rated less favourably for perceived competence and recommended starting salary. Another study found equally qualified mothers were seen as less competent than otherwise comparable women without children.
Fathers did not receive the same penalty in these evaluations. Men were sometimes helped by parenthood. An audit study also found that equally qualified applicants presented as mothers received callbacks less often than applicants presented as non-mothers.
The research does not establish whether the guilt mothers report and employers’ assessments of them cause one another or reinforce one another. It also leaves open why employers form different assumptions about mothers’ and fathers’ commitment, and how much of the wage gap reflects discrimination, perceived productivity or statistical inference.
US employment guidance sets limits on such assumptions. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says employers may not presume that mothers are less committed, withhold opportunities because of anticipated childcare needs, or treat fathers providing care worse than mothers providing comparable care. Sex-based assumptions in hiring, assignments, promotion, pay, discipline or termination can breach Title VII.
Support outside the workplace shapes what families can do when care arrangements fail. Structural gender equality and institutional support affect families’ ability to balance work and care during crises. Teleworking helped reduce working parents’ work burden, while effective childcare support is essential to easing the pressure on working mothers.
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